Chapter XXXVIII

As they walked, Liz couldn’t help but to watch Damien out of the corner of her eye, noticing that, despite his clear ability to keep his feelings to himself, she could still see the conflict, irritation, and fear in his features. She could tell that he desperately wanted to find some way to reject everything he was seeing, but with each day that passed, more evidence arrived to once again throw his mind into disarray. When she spoke to him in that hallway a few days ago and asked him to meet with Lilly and further hear her out, she had been able to tell that the potential existence of magic was too much for him. Yet, with enough pushing, he had listened, and then the young girl, Natalie Hill, gave her speech about how the two of them saved her, and while Liz didn’t know what went through Damien’s head when he heard it, she found herself unable to believe the girl was lying or that she was rattling off something Lilly told her to say. The emotions were from her heart, and they had genuine gratitude within them.

The other versions of us… We saved Natalie. I truly believe that. Whatever this other me was like, clearly she was a good person, and that comforts me in a weird way. At least, if we go back to our other selves, it might not be that bad at all.

Damien refused to talk about it, and after Natalie’s speech, he pulled further into himself, as if trying to protect himself as this magical reality began to feel more and more real. No matter how much Liz pried, he wouldn’t talk about Natalie, instead opting to skirt around the topic.

So what is he feeling right now? After what we saw back there, what could be going through that head of his?

Vinny Mickelson had arrived not as the angry and bitter loner that they knew, but as an upbeat, borderline obnoxious boy who greeted her as if they’d been best friends for years, and according to Lilly, they had been. That boisterous smile was not an expression she thought she’d ever see on his face, and yet, when he grinned at her and teased her, she suddenly felt emotional, as if she hadn’t realized how much she missed it. Yet, how could she miss something she never experienced? The proof only piled up more and more, and now, she knew that the person she currently was wasn’t the real Elizabeth Tao. The real person was somewhere inside of her, and now, she wanted her back. She wanted to be able to look Vinny in the eyes and be the person he knew she was.

“Emotions are quite powerful, I believe, so if you tap into them, you’ll be able to pull your real self out. As for me, I simply shared a nice moment with the girl I love. So perhaps invite Damien to your place and see what happens. Put that siren’s song of yours to good use and get him back.”

A soft smile formed on her face as she recalled Vinny’s words, and she knew what it was she had to do. She already had a plan and she wanted to go through with it on that very day. She had an opportunity to put everything back to normal, so she refused to let it pass her by.

My siren’s song, eh? Not sure what he means by that, but I almost feel like I should be insulted. But whatever. I’ll take your advice, Mickelson. Let’s see what I can do.

Liz emerged from her ponderings in time to see her house just ahead, and as she expected, her parents’ car wasn’t in the driveway. It wasn’t uncommon for them to go out to breakfast on Sunday mornings and so, she would have the house to herself for a little while.

“Hey, Damien,” she began, bringing his attention from the road to her. “Thanks for walking me back, but I realized my parents aren’t even home yet and I don’t really want to just sit around the house alone, so why don’t you come in and hang out for a while?”

Recalling the way Charlotte always flirted with guys, Liz put on an innocent smile and looked up at him, leaning into him ever so slightly so that their shoulders were touching. He seemed thrown off, and she could already see the gears in his head turning as he searched for a response to the sudden question.

“Er, but then why did you want to go home?” he muttered. “We could have just stayed at Reiner’s place and helped the others. I mean, we could always head back.”

She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his arm as she put on a pouty face to make her displeasure known. “Oh, come on, Damien. You know there’s nothing for us to do there. Harper’s got the whole thing covered, especially now that she’s got Mickelson back, so we’ll only be in the way. Pretty please! Let’s just go inside for a bit.”

“Um, well, uh, I…”

He stammered through his words and she knew that with just a little harder of a push, she would have him.

“Come on. Wouldn’t it be better to just hang out together rather than going home separately?” she pressed. “And there’s so much to talk about now. I mean, did you see what Mickelson was like? He’s basically a whole different person. It’s crazy, right?”

For a moment, the boy looked past her and stared at her house before sighing in obvious defeat. “O-okay. Just for a little while, then.”

“Yay!” She clapped her hands together in celebration then grabbed his hand and began leading him toward the house. He followed along quietly and she could tell he was a little embarrassed, which she found strangely adorable, as they made their way up to her front door. When they went inside, the two of them made their way down the hall and into her living room, and when Liz flicked on one of the lights, she inhaled softly then grinned.

Alright, here we go. If I play my cards right, maybe I can make this work.

“Well, take a seat,” she offered, indicating the recliners and the couch that surrounded her small coffee table.

“Um, alright.”

Damien awkwardly took a seat on the couch and she made sure that she sat down right beside him, still so close to him that they were touching. His cheeks had a soft red hue to them and she could tell that he didn’t know what to do in his current situation. When they spoke in the school’s hallway, he had told her that he couldn’t bring himself to believe Lilly because he didn’t think it was in the cards for him to have a happy high school life—for him to have friends that cared for him, and she could tell that wasn’t him being melodramatic. He’d even said one of the reasons he thought Lilly was lying was because there wasn’t a way Liz would fall for him. He genuinely believed that as fact, and so even now, with evidence piling up in support of Lilly’s claims, he still wouldn’t accept it.

But honestly, I can see it. I could see myself falling for him even as I am now, and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t already this strange connection between us. I just have to show him that he deserves happiness as much as anybody else does.

“So, what’d you make of Mickelson?” she inquired with a sly grin. “That was certainly strange.”

Damien shrugged. “I don’t know, really. I mean, it’s hard to believe that Mickelson would put on such a ridiculous act for Harper’s sake unless she bribed or blackmailed him, and even then, I don’t see him doing that. I mean, he might have been a little harsh, but I always felt he had a good head on his shoulders. That guy…just seemed like a moron.”

“A moron, huh?” Liz laughed, realizing that Vinny did come across as a major idiot with his new personality. “Yet, I think he’s just as intelligent as the Mickelson we knew, or maybe even more so. He just…doesn’t care what other people think about him. He suddenly seemed happier.”

“He definitely seemed happy,” the boy grunted. “Just makes me wonder what happened though. I thought Harper said she couldn’t give our memories back, so what’s the deal with that?”

“Well, apparently he went on a date with Alice Mendez last night, and after they kissed, he found himself back to normal,” she told him. “I guess his feelings for her were so strong that they broke past the memory spell. It’s kinda romantic, don’t you think?”

Unsurprisingly, Damien only rolled his eyes. “So that’s what they’re going with? He was woken up by true love’s kiss? I’m honestly a little disappointed. Figured Harper would have come up with something less cliche.”

“So you don’t believe them?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Of course I don’t. I mean, do you? He kissed Mendez and suddenly he was back to himself? That just doesn’t make sense. It works fine in fairy tales, but this isn’t a fairy tale, Liz. Life isn’t like that.”

She folded her hands on her lap and chuckled to herself, having expected such a response from the pessimistic boy sitting beside her. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds a bit silly, so why don’t I phrase it in a different way? I don’t think their kiss was magical or that their love was so powerful that it broke the curse, but I also don’t want to undersell the strength of human emotion.”

Damien frowned. “Meaning?”

“Well, at the end of the day, memories are important to us because of how each individual event made us feel,” she explained. “We remember events that brought out strong emotions. You remember when you were really happy or really sad or really angry. And when you have feelings for a person, it means your emotions when around them are unusually strong. And when you kiss them…well, it makes you happy to be close with them. In that sense, there is a lot of emotional power in a meaningful kiss. Am I wrong?”

“W-well, I mean, I suppose not,” he muttered awkwardly. “But still—”

“And if I’ve learned anything about this erased realm,” she interrupted, “it’s that while it is a powerful place, it has never been able to wipe away our strongest emotions. When Harper talks about Eric Reiner, we all feel something despite not knowing who he was. We were hit with nostalgia when we entered our clubroom, and when we’re together, we remember being together if only through how we make each other feel. The erased realm is powerful, but I don’t believe magic can ever truly overcome human emotion.” She smiled. “And maybe that’s an arrogant thing to say seeing as I don’t understand magic in the slightest, but that’s how I feel.”

Damien lowered his eyes and stared down at the coffee table, his brow furrowed as he processed her reasoning. When he didn’t say anything in response, Liz went on.

“So while I wouldn’t say true love’s kiss broke Mickelson’s memories free, I can’t sit here and say it didn’t do anything. Mickelson clearly cared greatly for Mendez and those feelings were more powerful than the spell, and I bet the fact that Harper had already gotten in his head only helped.”

“So then…” he began softly, “you really do think they were telling the truth? You think their kiss was what did it?”

She nodded. “Their kiss among other things. I think it was a culmination of every feeling Mickelson has had since entering this realm, and I think his kiss with Mendez was simply the final straw to break him free.” Liz then straightened up and turned her body to face Damien directly, her smile turning sly. “Yet, that’s only a hypothesis, and there’s only one way to test a hypothesis and that’s with an experiment.”

Damien’s head suddenly snapped up as he stared back at her as the meaning of her words reached him. Yet even though he clearly knew what she meant, he still stuttered out a question. “An experiment? What do you mean?”

“I mean kiss me, you big dork,” she teased, inching a bit closer to him. “Kiss me and let’s see if our memories come back. I mean, you feel it don’t you? You feel the connection between us? I think if we kiss, it might work.”

“B-but, Liz, I…” he stammered. “Just like that? You just want to kiss me?”

“I do, yes.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” Damien pressed. “What if it doesn’t work?”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, then it doesn’t work and we get a kiss out of it. Seems like a win-win either way, right? I promise I’ll be gentle if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“N-no, I…”

Damien was clearly searching for a way to get himself out of it, but she could see in his eyes that he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to embrace the moment she had set up for them, but his fears were once again stopping him. He didn’t think he deserved this. His life didn’t go his way, so for her to want to kiss him was unthinkable. He probably feared there was some trick to it and that she was plotting something. His lack of trust in human beings was stopping him from doing what he wanted to do.

But that’s not a good way to live. Of course, there are bad people out there, but there are so many good people, too, and trying to block out the bad will only prevent you from finding the good. He’s scared and he has every right to be, but…

Liz softly reached out and placed her hands on his cheeks, gently turning his head to face her. “I’m not pulling a trick on you, Damien. I’m not asking you to trust everybody, but please, trust me. This isn’t just about breaking the spell… Honestly, I kinda just want to kiss you. I hardly know you, yet I feel like I know you better than anyone. I have feelings for you that don’t make sense, but I like them and I don’t want to reject them.”

“B-but, Liz…” he whispered. “Is that really alright?”

She smiled warmly. “Of course it is. I mean, the only ones who can decide if it’s okay are us, and I’ve already decided it is. So you’re the only one in your way. Pull down your walls, Damien. Let me in. Let’s go back to ourselves…together.” She stared into his dark eyes, finding them beautiful, and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. “Now, I won’t force you if you don’t want to, but if you do, then just close your eyes and let it happen.”

Those eyes of his were full of so many emotions, and they showed her the true complexity of Damien Clark. There was so much to him, and she knew that this version of her had only scratched the surface. He relied on his own beliefs and thoughts, using reasoning and logic to reach his conclusions. That was why he struggled to accept magic. That was why he couldn’t see the erased realm for the fake world it was. It defied reason. Even now, she could see him desperately trying to understand what was happening, to reach a decision that wouldn’t harm him. He didn’t want to get hurt…

…and he didn’t want to hurt her.

Slowly, Damien’s eyes drifted shut as he made his decision to let her in. Liz leaned forward, feeling both her body and his shaking. She lowered her left hand from his face and pressed it to his back, and she could feel his hands rising up to embrace her. Her face was so close to his that she could feel his breath and finally, she pressed her lips against his.

It was right.

It felt right to her as she kissed him. They were together, just like they should have been. They should never have been apart in the first place. After a moment, his hesitation began to disappear and she felt him kissing her back, accepting it and even welcoming it. The cloud in her head began to clear up and images started to gather in her mind. She had been ready for it. She had wanted it.

This was perfect.

This was how it should be.

***

I no longer remember much about my friends from middle and elementary school. I know I had them. And I know I liked them, but there was this strange gap between us that I could never quite explain. They treated me well. It wasn’t like I was bullied, and I was even a little popular. People liked me and I got along with them. There really wasn’t anything I could complain about, yet I didn’t feel as happy as I knew I should be. There was something wrong with me and it made me sad that I couldn’t reciprocate the friendship that everybody else gave me. I felt like a jerk for that, and it always seemed like I was just leading them on, pretending to be a friend when I didn’t really care the way I should.

I was a liar.

That’s what I told myself. I was lying to them. I was deceiving them. It wasn’t right and I knew it, but what was I supposed to do? If I just turned my back on them, I’d be an even bigger jerk, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go. If I started avoiding them just to sit by myself in the hallways, it would look really pathetic. So I continued to pretend, laughing and joking with them like there was nothing wrong, and that voice in the back of my head just continued to eat at me.

I was a liar.

But at the same time, what right did I have to complain? There were so many people who had it far worse. There were kids who got bullied, kids who got ostracized, and kids who didn’t have the popularity I did. What kind of scumbag was I to complain about having friends and being liked. That was even more pathetic.

I was a liar.

I was a scumbag.

I kept telling myself these things, but I got really good at putting on a fake smile and pretending it was okay. I don’t think anybody ever suspected what was really going on in my head, and that was something I was disgustingly proud of.

I was a good liar, apparently. I was good at hiding things. I was good at keeping my opinions and emotions to myself, and nobody was ever the wiser until something changed.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t any big moment that changed me. It was a handful of pretty benign interactions that gradually ate away at me and opened me up. It was the very beginning of my freshman year, and it was a math class, which was my least favorite. All the girls I hung out with hated it, and they pitied me when they saw who I was sitting next to.

In the back of the class, where the teacher rarely ever paid attention, I was in the corner and on my right was this boy whose name I didn’t know before then. He had gone to our middle school and people knew he was a huge weirdo, but I didn’t remember his name until he introduced himself.

“Good morning, my friend! It seems we will be seat neighbors in this wretched class of numbers! It is nice to meet you! I am Eric Reiner, president of the Magic Club!”

It was so ridiculous that I thought it was a prank, but the cheerful nature of the boy was clearly real. That was actually how he talked and I’d never really seen anything like it. The people around us shot him looks of disgust and clearly pitied me, but this Eric kid didn’t give a damn. He just smiled as he introduced himself and before I realized it, I was laughing my ass off. But I wasn’t even laughing at him like everybody probably thought I was. I thought he was funny in a good way.

“What is it?” he had demanded. “I do not recall telling a joke.”

I waved his comment aside and smiled up at him, extending my hand for him to shake. “Oh, no, sorry. I just wasn't expecting such a formal introduction. I’m Liz Tao. Nice to meet you, too, buddy.”

At my response, his grin returned and he firmly shook my hand. I wasn’t sure why I reacted the way I did, but I just found myself oddly charmed by him. I mean, it’s not every day that you meet somebody like that and I didn’t want to let the opportunity pass me up. And it seemed my reaction made him comfortable around me because he was very friendly over the next few weeks. We helped each other with math and even took to teasing each other quite often. His antics were entertaining and I enjoyed our banter.

“Dear Liz, I do not think this one is correct! You’ve clearly forgotten a step!”

“Oh, definitely not! I think you need to check your own work, Reiner! I know this is right! Perhaps your eyes need fixing!’

“Oh, how rude! And here I am just trying to help you! How foul!”

I’d never talked like that with anybody. I was always quiet and reserved, interacting with others in the same way my friends did. I fit their mold perfectly, and so when I started breaking out of it, it clearly made them uncomfortable.

“Um, Lizzie, you know you’re being a bit cringy, right? I mean, Reiner’s such a weirdo. It’s probably best to just ignore him.”

At the time, I wasn’t sure why, but I took offense to that comment. Yeah, he was weird, but why should I care? He was fun to be around. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I was lying. The person I was when I was hanging out with him was more me than anything I’d ever been in the past. It felt right.

It was around the time of club rush that I started growing distant with my friends, and soon enough, Eric said his club was looking for some members and that he thought I’d fit in well. Having no reason not to, I did as he asked and checked out the Magic Club, only to find two other boys already there. One was Vinny Mickelson and the other was Damien Clark. I knew very little about Vinny, but even I’d heard the rumors about Damien. He was infamous, after all, and anybody who went to middle school with him would know the rumors.

So why was he in the Magic Club of all places?

That was the first thing that told me the rumors couldn’t be all true. The boy they talked about would never have been caught dead with the strange individuals that Eric and Vinny were. I was drawn to him in a way I couldn’t explain, and while he was distant at first, he started opening up to me, and instead of finding a violent savage, I instead befriended a calm, sweet, considerate boy. Eric and Vinny were great friends already, but Damien and I made a different kind of connection.

I’m not sure what happened to my old friends, but there was never any specific moment that broke us apart. I just drifted away and soon enough, we were no more than strangers when we passed in the hall. I had found a place I was comfortable in. I was never made to be a popular girl. I was never supposed to be one of them.

I was a weirdo, like the rest of the club. I was an idiot. I was obnoxious. And I liked it.

I didn’t care that the school suddenly rejected me, lumping me in as one of them. It didn’t matter to me. Just the fact that they outcasted the club without even knowing them told me that the opinion of the masses was worthless. They formed their opinions based on rumor alone, and that was something I couldn’t respect.

“Y-you want to go out with me? But Liz, I know you say you don’t care, but you know how people feel about me. Do you really want to put yourself in that position?”

I was the one who asked Damien Clark out and I’ve never regretted that decision. I truly don’t care about everybody else. I saw them the way they saw me: they were dumbasses who shouldn't even be given a thought.

I’ll admit, though, that there were times when I felt a little off at the thought of being rejected so hard by the school, and that’s why when Alice started getting bullied, I acted on such an impulse. I knew I could handle it, but Alice? Could she take such rejection? I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t wait and find out. So I stole the stone from Eric and gave it to Vinny. But that decision was dumb, and I hurt Damien by doing it. I did my best to communicate with him and I used that stone to show him what I always hid from him: that our relationship really did affect me at times.

Yet, I didn’t lie.

I didn’t give a damn what they thought, even when it got to me. I cared about him more than I cared about my reputation. The day I asked him out and he expressed his fears about what it might do, I didn’t lie when I told him:

“Fuck their opinions.”

I meant that from the bottom of my heart.

***

I’ve always been plagued by rumors. They’ve been following me for a very long time and people knew me as the infamous Damien Clark. They said I was dangerous. They said I was violent and unstable and could lose my mind at any given moment. And they said I had once gone so out of control that I almost killed a guy, and there was some truth to a lot of that. My father was a military man, you see, and so he was very obsessed with having a strong son who could defend himself and be a man. Because of this, in my younger years, he spent a lot of time training me to protect myself and raising me to be tough, the way he thought I ought to be. To be honest, I’ve never been sure of how to feel about him. I never liked our training sessions, but he didn’t care. I needed to be strong, he would say.

I needed to be a man.

I didn’t have interest in being strong, but I can’t say I didn’t learn a lot from him. I wasn’t the tough, manly son he wanted, but I certainly wasn’t weak either. His lessons did give me a certain step up over the other kids, so anybody who wanted to pick a fight with me wouldn’t last long. Yet, I never actually almost killed a kid. That’s just the story that began to circle.

This bigshot in our class approached me in early middle school with a few of his buddies, and it was clear they were just trying to act all tough and mighty. I wasn’t a small kid by any means, so they probably wanted to make a statement or whatever by “putting me in my place” even though I’d never spoken a word to them in my life. After all, if you rough up the bigger kids, then you can prove your dominance.

I didn’t give a shit about proving my dominance, but my father had instilled a certain level of pride in me. I wasn’t just gonna roll over and let them do what they wanted, and the ironic thing is, I never even got the chance to fight him. The arrogant bastard probably didn’t think I’d be so quick and when he threw his first punch, I just moved out of the way. I honestly expected more out of him, but the clumsy moron tripped over his feet and fell down, his head colliding with a rather sharp rock that poked out of the dirt.

I didn’t touch him.

I never laid a finger on him.

He did it to himself, but his buddies were there and in the end, they would tell the story. The kid went to the hospital with head trauma, and while he wound up okay, it didn’t matter. Stories spread around the school about how I kicked his ass and sent him to the hospital. They said I started the fight and that I attacked him and no matter what I said to people, they didn’t care.

I was a psychopath in their eyes. I nearly killed one of the most popular kids in school.

Most people avoided me at that point, but there were still a handful of prideful assholes who wanted to prove just how tough they were. If they avenged the poor guy I “attacked”, they could prove their own toughness and garner favor with the school populace.

But again, I wasn’t just going to roll over and take their bullshit. So in that sense, I became the monster they said I was. Anybody who attacked me got their asses kicked. After all, my dad taught me how to defend myself and I was up against a bunch of kids whose egos needed some control, in my eyes. I won every single fight I got into, which just continued to solidify how they saw me.

So if I couldn’t change their minds, why bother trying? I’d deal with whoever my next challenger was, take the suspension, and reset the cycle. Eventually, kids were so scared of me that they just stopped trying, and the narrative that I was violent spread even further. The infamous Damien Clark was best avoided and I was okay with that. Why should I ever want to interact with the scumfucks who wouldn’t even give me a chance to explain myself. So imagine my surprise when somebody actually did give me that chance.

“Hello, my friend. Would you mind if I joined you?”

The tone in his voice was comical and when I looked up, I knew I had to be getting my ass teased. His smile appeared stupid and I knew this was just another moron on his way to pick a fight. I didn’t know what kind of class clown he thought he was but I didn’t care.

“Fuck off,” I spat at him.

Most others would either do as I said or they’d start getting in my face, yet he did neither.

“Well, that’s not very nice, but then again, given how everybody treats you, I guess I should have expected that. However…” Despite my clear desire to be left alone, he sat down beside me regardless. “You’re an interesting individual to me.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him, my fists already clenched. “Yeah? How so?’

“I, of course, have heard rumors about you. You’re a violent beast running rampant in the school and if you’re angered, you’ll devour their souls and condemn them to eternal hell.”

I scoffed at him, having not heard that version of the rumors before. I went to tell him to fuck off again, but his next words caused me pause.

“But you do not seem like a beast to me,” he said. “No, there’s clearly more to this than everybody else knows. I do not believe you have ever been the aggressor. You’re simply defending yourself, aren’t you, Clark?”

When he smiled, it almost seemed like he was staring through me. How had he figured that out? Shouldn’t he be following the flock like everybody else?

“What gives you that idea?” I growled at him, and he merely winked.

“It’s just a feeling I have,” he explained. “Why don’t we just call it a sixth sense of mine? And trust me, my friend, this sense has never led me astray before. It’s shocking to me that the supposed infamous beast is as pure as he is. It just doesn’t add up. No, I’m certain you’re not a bad guy. You’re actually quite nice.”

“But you don’t know me! How could you say that with such confidence?”

“Like I said, I just know!”

He made that declaration as he stuck his hand out before me, an offering of friendship that I hadn’t known in a very long time.

“My name is Eric Reiner and I would like to be your friend!”

It was such a stupidly innocent request, but I couldn’t just ignore it. He really didn’t seem to be lying, but it just didn’t fit. Why wouldn’t he trust the ever-loved popular fucks of the school? Everybody else did, so why not him? What did he want from me? How did I benefit him?

But the answer to that was as innocent and childish as his request.

Friendship.

He just wanted friendship. He wanted to extend an olive branch simply because he did. And he put in the effort to break down my walls. After that, he joined me at lunch every day, talking about this and that and just being all around nice. I gradually opened up to him, too, as well as to Vinny Mickelson, another friend of his. They both welcomed me, and gradually, I became comfortable. Why should the rumors matter when I finally had friends? Eric and Vinny didn’t care about rumors. They cared about me, no strings attached.

And then, in freshman year, Elizabeth Tao walked through the door of our new clubroom. She was a girl Eric had met in his math class and he somehow convinced her to join the club. I was hesitant at first, but I soon realized that she was more like me than I expected her to be. She fit in with the club seamlessly, as if we had been friends for years. We talked and laughed, and I grew close to her in a way that was different from the others.

And then, she did something I never saw coming.

“So Damien, I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while now, but would you be interested in going out sometime? Like, on a date?”

I had once abandoned any possibility of friendship, let alone the chance of having a girlfriend. I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted it, of course, but was it really alright? What about my reputation? How would that affect this girl?

But she didn’t care.

“Fuck their opinions,” she had said sharply.

I’d never heard her curse before, and the sincerity in her voice told me that she really didn’t give a damn. She actually wanted me. I had friends and now I had a girlfriend. Life became good.

I never thought it would happen, but I had friends and a home to belong in.

I was finally happy.

***

As Damien pulled back from the kiss, his breathing heavy, he found himself lying on the couch with Liz on top of him, their faces inches apart as they gazed into each other’s eyes. Their arms were wrapped around each other and as they just stared at their faces, he found his mind clear. Everything was back. He remembered it all and he could tell just from her sly grin that she had, too. She had been right about the power of their emotions, and it comforted him to know that even in a world as powerful and incomprehensible as the magical one, human emotions still held weight. He owed his happiness to the Magic Club, and that connection was too powerful for Nigreos and Album to ever fully rob him of.

Damien gently raised a hand and placed it against Liz’s cheek to wipe away the tears rolling down her face.

“I love you, Liz,” he whispered.

He was glad that her smile was the first thing he saw when he finally woke up from the erased realm’s nightmare.

“I love you, too, Damien.”